After a week of awkward silence, she had chosen this insignificant morning to meet him at a crowded cafe. She walked through to the cluster of tables in the corner of the room, attempting to look calm while her mind viciously ran over the words she had prepared to say.
They should have been said long ago, before things had gone too far. Procrastination had stumbled into shame; shame had found it's way to lust. They had intertwined, impossible now to define as anything but one chaotic creature, riding on her shoulders, pulling out her hair, eating away at her soul. It had become a painful side-effect to her distorted perspective of goodness, and she was desperate for that goodness. So she watched them, male after hungry male, wolfing down the unconditional perks of her tainted mind with resentment burning in her eyes. She watched with those eyes, and that knowing smile on her blushing face, because it was worth it. Worth that momentary feeling of existence, rewarded with a selfish groan of satisfaction. It had already disappeared by now, buried under a black stench of self-disgust.
She slumps into her dark corner, shuffling around in her bag, checking the inner pocket for some reassurance. Instead, she finds a stick of gum, bent out of shape, unwanted, and a wrinkled coupon.
Twenty-percent off next time you buy our anti-age cream, because you are that special.

-----

I submit to this insignificant morning; undervalued, overlooked. Life is moving all around,  sounds and voices stirring; oblivious souls with distracting agendas. Breaking themselves; breaking one another.
Just then a female voice sighs deeply, and I am immediately drawn towards the sound of pain. Whose fragile soul belongs to this lost breath, sharing with me this intimate moment of empathy? I don't know who she is, but I find myself heading in the same direction as her, towards a space where shadows are known to merge as one. I watch her discretely as she succumbs to darkness; indulging herself in physical distractions, she is unaware. Overlooking herself, and me.
She is revising words to the contents of her bag when I suddenly notice him, weaving through smiling faces to where we are seated. Our shadows did not welcome him. As he approached I sensed a cold shudder slither along her fading silhouette.
Their first words resemble love, until she bites her lower lip briefly, as if to tear away the habit. She clears her throat, and quietly, her words slowly unravel.
We are just a mistake, a misunderstanding of intentions. This isn't the beginning of a romance, it's just the instant gratification of disturbed strangers. The goodness is gone. All that's left is a unilateral desire for abuse. No, this romance is unwanted.
She speaks in slow hesitant whispers, but a ghost of persistence shadows her voice. It was in her eyes too, intoxicating me; a speck of yellow courage, surrounded by a million black-brown shards of loneliness.
Her expression of anxiety becomes more apparent now, and she unconsciously leans her forearm against me, as if to support herself from falling into a flood of emotions.
I am compelled to touch her. She flinches at first, the unexpected contact distracting her into a single stutter. But she doesn't pull away. The heated touch dissolves into the palm of her hand, and she absorbs the comfort it offers.
She secretly embraces me, my warmth intensifying the conviction in her voice.
It grinds a frown deeper into his face.  
We breathe as one now. Submerging me into her soul; she inhales my devotion. Something has changed within me. Finally, she wants me. She doesn't seem to mind the look of resentment on his face anymore. Doesn't seem to care about his bitter comments. Now I give her what he has already taken.
I do care about you, he declares. If you don't want a relationship, the least you could do is indulge me. You owe me babe. Because at least I care.
The illusion of empathy is gone, transfused into a self-proclaimed right to mechanize. Priorities shift, and this time, she does not submit.
I give her my energy. She devours a cloud of delicious aggression as it wraps around her. She is seduced by my essence, empowering, flowing through her.
Nothing else matters now. nothing else, because she is pulling me closer, towards those lonely eyes. Dark waves of hair crash into me, whispering secrets only I can hear. Sublime lips brush against me, and nothing else matters now.
I offer my devotion, and she parts her lips delicately, tasting my soul.
At least we can get back to my place and say goodbye properly, right, love? His last manipulative attempt, and she does not submit.
Are you listening to me? Bitch. Ironic of you to be playing hard to get, isn't it.
It wasn't what he said that got our attention. It was that demeaning, breaking smirk on his face. She looks down at me, and I know this is my chance to be something. Suddenly I understand my fate, my meaning. Indifferent towards my own fatality, I throw myself at him with such force that the blow knocks his head back into the wall behind him with a loud thud; he cries out in pain and defensively covers his burning face with his hands.
I am now shattered, reduced to a cold nothingness. But it is worth it. Worth it, because as I lay here, slowly evaporating into a filthy stickiness, a surreal warmth takes over me. Then, as she walks right past me, stepping out to her own world, I catch a fleeting glimpse of satisfaction in those eyes. And I feel special.
The smiling faces nearby have transformed into frowns. A middle-aged man curses at the liquid all over his briefcase. Two toddlers giggle and lick their hands as their irritated mother wipes their faces clean. Someone calls out to the waiter.
Get us some napkins, damnit.